


dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for

by lovelylogans



Series: lavender for luck [2]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fake Proposal, M/M, Magic, Multi, lavender for luck, this probably won't make sense if you haven't read that one first
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 20:15:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17794043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelylogans/pseuds/lovelylogans
Summary: The first time someone talks about marriage, it’s a joke.It’s within a week of Virgil coming back to school after all his roommates (boyfriends, boyfriends,right,they’re his boyfriends) have found out that his collection of plants and tarot cards aren’t just for aesthetic, after all.(“It was a reasonable assumption to make!” Roman huffs after he admits that’s what he thought was the case, and Virgil kind of wants to kiss him because he’s so indignant about it, and then he remembers that’s a thing he can do now, and their time is limited, so why not?)or: four times virgil thinks about marriage, and one time he does something about it.





	dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for

**Author's Note:**

> surprise! I said i wanted to come back to this verse, and valentine’s day seemed like a great time!

_“You ever put your arms out and spin really, really fast? Well, that's what love is like. It makes your heart race. It turns the world upside down. But if you're not careful, if you don't keep your eyes on something still, you can lose your balance. You can't see what's happening to the people around you. You can't see that you're about to fall.” — **Practical Magic  
**_

* * *

The first time someone talks about marriage, it’s a joke.

It’s within a week of Virgil coming back to school after all his roommates (boyfriends, boyfriends, _right,_ they’re his boyfriends) have found out that his collection of plants and tarot cards aren’t just for aesthetic, after all.

(“It was a reasonable assumption to make!” Roman huffs after he admits that’s what he thought was the case, and Virgil kind of wants to kiss him because he’s so indignant about it, and then he remembers that’s a thing he can do now, and their time is limited, so why not?)

“So,” Logan says thoughtfully, from the table, where he’s keeping notes on everything Virgil’s been saying about the curse, because he has taken it upon himself to investigate anything and everything magic. So Virgil gets asked a lot of specific questions that he gets to answer with _I dunno, it’s just a thing, that’s just what the leaves mean,_  and _okay I feel I should also mention that my great-great-uncle Percival was also well-known for using his powers to find increasingly creative ways to get wasted during prohibition, which, first of all, I should probably incorporate into my business since we’re on a college campus, but second and more importantly his word probably isn’t the most trustworthy?_

“Does the curse always kick in _after_ they have children, or is there note of another milestone that can incite it?”

Virgil frowns from where he’s lying on the couch. “Milestone?”

Logan waves his right hand absently, still scrawling notes with his left. “You know. Would it become more likely if we bought a house together, or listed each other as emergency contacts, or if we got married?”

Virgil coughs, sitting up ramrod straight, feeling his cheeks flush. “ _Um.”_

Logan’s cheeks are just slightly blotchy red, a sign that he’s equally as flustered. 

“I mean,” he says. “I mean— _hypothetically_ , if we were to—do that. At some point.”

“Well, I,” Virgil says. “I mean. I— _I?”_

“Well, I suppose part of the question is the  _legality_  of marriage, since polyamorous marriage isn’t legal here, but that’s a question too,” Logan says thoughtfully. “Is it a question of the _legal_ ties of marriage, or the emotional commitment of it?”

He looks at Virgil, as if he has an answer to that, and as if his brain isn’t still stuck on _hypothetically, if we were to do that at some point._

“But I suppose emotionally, prior to marriage, they tend to feel just as committed, it’s a question of having that connection recognized by law. I suppose. I’ve never really thought about it. I’d assume Patton or Roman has, one moment—”

Virgil’s brain comes back online by the time Logan’s been typing on his phone.

“Wait. _Wait,_  you cannot send them a text about marriage without any context, _Logan!”_

There’s the sound of a sent message, and Logan looks up from his phone.

“Oops?”

Virgil digs out his phone, and reads the message sent to the groupchat, freshly titled _boyz 2 boyfrenzzz_ , which he is about 95% sure Roman spelled like that to annoy Logan.

_What are your opinions on marriage?_

Virgil is hastily typing _in terms of like emotional significance in comparison to legal stuff, or something??? he was rambling i’m so sorry oh my god_ by the time the groupchat dings. He’s too late and he needs to bury himself immediately.

_if you’re proposing you need to treat me to like 100x more flowers and dinners and romantic outings than you have been doing lately fyi step it up ffs i want to be WOOED,_  Roman has sent, _and also we have been together for like maybe a month???_

Patton’s response comes basically immediately after. _All for it!! But also we need to figure out like so much planning. Oh my god Logan would be the best wedding planner ever oh my god loGAN you should become a wedding planner!_

“I did not anticipate this line of conversation,” Logan commented.

Virgil’s phone buzzes. Virgil lifts his face from where he’s mashing it into the couch cushions to read the latest of this train wreck.

_I am getting my doctorate and becoming a professor, most likely,_  Logan’s text reads. 

_LOGAN HAS NOT CLARIFIED THAT HE MEANT THIS IN THE CONTEXT OF EMOTIONAL CONNECTION VS LEGAL RECOGNITION AND IF IT WOULD AFFECT THE CURSE,_  Virgil sends at last, all-caps.

_yeah okay but like we’re agreed that if/most likely WHEN we get married logan and i are planning it right,_  Roman sends, after a few moments pause.

_I have so many siblings that could be ring bearers/flower girls we have that under control,_  Patton sends, and then, _OH MY GOD CAKE TASTINGS WE GET TO ALL GO ON CAKE TASTINGS CAN WE HAVE ONE OF THOSE WEDDING DESSERT BARS SO WE CAN GO ON COOKIE TASTINGS TOO??!?!?!?_

"I see what you mean,” Logan says. “I probably could have phrased that to be clearer.”

“Oh, you _think_?”

* * *

 

The second time marriage is mentioned, it’s in the aftermath of a fight.

(Looking back, the first year of their relationship, it’s like their handing off a baton of various troubles: Virgil terrified of getting committed because of the curse, Logan not wanting to get committed because he’s terrified of commitment and also of emotions, Roman full of doubting himself and trying to push them away, and Patton full of sadness and trying to hide it all. There’s a lot of fights during that first year.)

He can’t even remember what that particular fight’s about, when he looks back on it. It’s a fight that ensues near the first wave of tests, the weather clinging to the last bits of summer. The fight itself is really only memorable for one reason.

Well. Two reasons.

Logan’s snarling at Roman, and Roman’s bristling in kind, Patton fidgeting nervously, eyes darting between them, mouth opening and snapping shut like he can’t think of something to say, when it happens.

He can’t even tell where it comes from, at first, crashing into him like a wave trying to sink a ship and Virgil tries to breathe over the _anger-concern-fear-hurt_  that’s slamming straight into him, and he looks at Patton, because he feels from Patton the most but then Logan’s mouth twists into a sneer and there’s a stab of _hurt-derision-smug-guilt?,_  all conflicting and slamming into each other, and _oh,_  oh _no._

He’s never—he hasn’t tapped into more than one person at a time, ever, _ever,_  and not now, not when—

Virgil tries to suck in a breath, and another, but he can’t—he can’t _breathe_  past the tightness in his throat the nails biting into in his hands the shaking of someone the panic the twisting in his stomach the the the—

“Virgil?” Patton says, soft, cutting through the vertigo like a scream through silence, and Virgil manages a wild gasp, screwing his eyes shut— _confusion-pause-wait?-concern_  momentarily pausing that _misery-anger-frustration,_  and he can’t—he _can’t—_

_“_ I need to leave,” someone chokes out, because that is certain, that is _clear,_  the someone has to leave right now, before the magic screams out to defend against something that it’s bringing on himself and if it does anything to them he can’t do anything to them he can’t hurt them he can’t let himself hurt them he can’t—

“Virgil,” Logan—or is it Roman? or Patton? or himself? They’re all mashed in together and he can’t distinguish between any of them, not even himself, he just knows he has the body that needs to _go—_

“ _Virgil,_  hey—“ one of them, a step closer to the body, yes, Virgil, he is Virgil, and he throws his hands in front of the body, because that’s _worse,_  that’s the _concern-help-anxiety_  seeping in deeper stronger more—

“ _Stop,”_  Virgil shrieks, or maybe he squeaks it, he just knows it forces its way out of him— “Stop, stop, stop, please, I can’t, I just need—I need to go, I need space, I—“

Virgil’s hand lands on something, a doorknob, thank God, thank _God,_  and he manages to pry it open, stumbling away with a gasp, and he falls to his knees—

—in grass, not on the concrete, and he’s gone.

It’s quiet. It’s _stopped._

How could it have stopped? It was so much, all at once, it was so much, and now Virgil is here, away, chest feeling so hollow and achy that it might collapse in on itself, ribs no longer a cage but more like they’re about to crumble into ruins, and he’s so...

How did that even _happen?_

Virgil swallows, hard. Because yes, he is Virgil, he is _Virgil,_  how had it swept over him so fast, so overwhelming, and how could it just have stopped?

Except things haven’t stopped. Not really. The buzzing of cicadas are too noisy in his ears, like they’ve burrowed in and made a home there, and the air is so humid and hot that he might drown without a drop of water in his lungs, and the dew is soaking through his jeans and maybe through his skin all the way to his bones, and everything is so much again, that moment of quiet gone, swept away, but he’s alone, he’s _alone,_  how is he still feeling so much when he’s alone—?

Grass and air and trees, and he is feeling it, he is feeling _everything,_  and no, no, _no,_  he’s alone, it’s supposed to have stopped, why hasn’t it stopped, he needs it to stop, he just needs everything to stop—

He can feel every bug, every squirrel and mole and bird, every leaf on every branch on every tree, and it’s too much, he’s spreading too thin, he needs an anchor, he needs something to pull him back into himself, and he buries his fingers into the dirt, and now he can hear himself, letting out sobbing, gasping breaths, and feel the wetness on his cheeks, and yes, this is him, this is him, he’s coming back. He’s trying to come back. 

Virgil tries to breathe, digging his fingers into the earth, again and again and again, feeling the dewy grass itch against his hands, the dirt dig underneath his fingers, and tries to—to _secure_  himself, and he needs—he needs—

“Virge?”

“ _Stop_ ,” Virgil chokes out, because now he can feel him too, the blister on his heel and the ache in his neck that isn’t his, not his, it’s Patton’s, and he needs to stay in himself and not start feeling everything else again. Patton stops exactly where he is as Virgil squeezes his eyes shut and tries to breathe.

“Sorry,” he says. “Sorry, I’m—”

“No, hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. I’m gonna sit down right over here, is that okay?”

Virgil swallows. “Okay,” he croaks, digs his fingers in deeper, feels the dirt give way and cling, tries to breathe as he focuses on _himself,_  himself only. 

His ripped jeans, his hoodie, his boots. The tears on his cheeks and the way his breath is uneven and hitching. The tension of his arms, the way his hands are twisting grabbing digging deeper all the time, the dirt lodged solidly under his nails. 

He can’t feel a blister anymore. His neck feels like it always does. He can’t feel Patton’s body-echoes anymore.

Virgil breathes, in, and out, and repeats, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Patton repeats, and Virgil opens his eyes—Patton is sitting criss-cross apple-sauce, fifteen feet away from him, hands folded in his lap, leaning forward and staring at him in a way that zings  _earnest_  and _concern_  straight into his chest so strongly and dizzyingly he has to close his eyes again, almost queasy with it.

"Is there any way I can help?” Patton asks.

“Just—stay over there,” Virgil says. “I—sorry. Sorry, most of my knowledge of this stuff comes from Gillian, it’s kinda rare for me, so—”

“Gillian?”

Oh. Right.

“Um, confession,” Virgil says. “Sometimes, I can...” Virgil wrinkles his nose, tries to put it into words for the first time. “I mean, it’s not _all_  the time, I just think it’s when it’s really strong and it’s really only with you, mostly, I’ve never had it happen with Logan, and Roman only a couple times, but I—I got hit by all three of you at once and I needed to get out before it turned... bad.”

“Hit with what?” Patton says, confusion arcing through the air, and Virgil has to dig his fingers into the dirt again, trying to scratch deeper.

“It’s... a kind of feedback loop?” Virgil tries, eyes still shut. “I don’t really know how to explain it, but sometimes, if you... okay. You know how when you came in for your first reading, I gave you a hug, and you asked me how I knew you needed it?”

“Yes.”

“When you’re feeling something really... _strongly,”_  Virgil says, hesitates, and plows ahead. “Sometimes... sometimes it hits me too.”

A pause. Then: “Oh,” Patton says, voice sounding funny. “So the hug... you could feel that I was... sad.”

“Felt you when Logan and Roman went out a date, too. Other times. I don’t know how, it’s not consistent, I can’t really control it.”

“ _Oh,”_  Patton repeated. “So when we all got into a fight...”

“I could feel you getting upset. Yes.”

“And... and Roman and Logan too?”

“Yeah.” Virgil croaks. “I kind of... freaked out. Panicked. I didn’t want to lash out.”

“We were all kind of lashing out, I don’t think—”

Virgil smiles bitterly, keeps his eyes shut. “If a Fae lashes out, it can mean a lot worse than shouting at you, Patton.”

“...oh,” Patton says, soft, uncertain.

“I haven’t since I was a kid, but it did result in a guy needing to be loaded into an ambulance,” Virgil says. “Or—the cats hurt him bad enough for him to be loaded into an ambulance, I guess, but that was because of me. Or the time I nearly blew up the library. So. Yeah.”

“Are you feeling what I’m feeling right now?”

“No,” Virgil says. “As long as I keep my eyes shut and we’re this far apart. I’ll calm down in a little bit, thanks for checking on me—”

“I’m not leaving, unless it hurts you,” Patton says, stubborn, and Virgil takes a breath in and out.

“Will it?” Patton says.

Virgil considers lying, telling him yes it does and he needs to be alone, but. He doesn’t actually want Patton to go, not when he’s trying to anchor himself, so he shakes his head.

“Okay, then,” Patton says, and he hear-feels the susuruss of the blades of grass shifting when Patton does. “I’m staying.”

Virgil bows his head, and opens them again cautiously, staring only at the ground.

Yes. That’s okay. This is okay. He can do this.

He ensues with the methods he’s memorized: counting his breaths, and the blades of grass, and wiggling his fingers and toes, trying to think of a plant that starts with each letter of the alphabet, tracking back and starting over again when he makes it through the whole thing.

“Okay,” Virgil says. “You can... you can come closer, but don’t touch me, if that’s okay?”

“Of course that’s okay,” Patton says, firmly, and slowly scoots himself closer, until they’re close enough that Virgil could reach out and touch him if he wanted to.

Virgil looks at him, and breathes a little sigh of relief that he can only feel a sense of exhaustion: his own, entirely, and no one else’s.

“Are you all good?” Patton asks, and Virgil nods, carefully withdrawing his fingers from the dirt.

“Does that happen a lot?” Patton says. “Your magic kind of... overwhelming you like that.”

“Sometimes,” Virgil admits. “It’s like I just... I dunno, actually. I don’t really know sometimes if it’s my magic or my emotions messing me up, because sometimes they feel so close I can’t tell them apart.”

“So it feels like emotions? Doing magic?”

Virgil grimaces. “Not _exactly,”_  he says. “I... I don’t really know how to describe it, I guess. I don’t know what’s a normal-person thing versus a Fae thing, because I’ve never been without it.”

“That makes sense,” Patton admits. “I just... I dunno, I guess I wanna know how to help?”

Virgil blinks at him. “How to...?”

“Help,” Patton repeats. “I mean, it looked really overwhelming, it clearly took a lot out of you, it freaked you out, and I just want to be sure we don’t do that if we can’t help it.”

Virgil stares at him. How to _help._  Something that’s almost entirely Virgil’s fault, and Patton wants to _help,_  because... because it made _Virgil_  upset?

But that’s Patton all the time, isn’t it? He wants to _help_  everyone, all the time. Because he’s sweet, and soft, and gentle, and _kind,_  despite bad things happening, like his mom dying and his catastrophic breakup and—

Virgil swallows, and has to close his eyes again.

And Virgil. _Virgil_  being a bad thing that’s happened to him. Will happen to him. 

“I’m sorry,” Virgil says, and his voice cracks. “I’m sorry, Patton, I’m—”

“Hey, hey, honey, you don’t have anything—”

“Yes, I _have,”_  Virgil rasps, pushing his fists into his eyes to stop himself from crying. “Or I will, and—you—you _deserve_  more than that. All three of you.”

“ _Sweetheart_ ,” Patton says, and feels the air move, like Patton’s stretched out a hand to touch him, and he tenses and looks up in enough to see Patton drawing his hands back into his lap, looking like he did not _want_  to be doing that, but—

“You’re so,” Virgil says, and gulps, waving to the hands he’d drawn back, “ _good,_  and I’m not, and—”

“That’s not true,” Patton says, and Virgil lets out a snort without meaning to.

“ _Hey,”_  Patton says, and repeats firmly, “ _That’s not true._  You’re _good,_  V, okay?”

“Which part,” Virgil says dryly. “The part that lashes out and hurts someone whenever I freak out, or the part that’s gonna kill you one day? The part where I’m never gonna be able to get you that white picket fence and big happy family you’ve wanted since you were a kid? The part where I can’t give you a... a happy wedding and a big reception, with a cake-and-cookies bar.”

“All of them,” Patton says. “And—hey, we don’t know it’s gonna happen to us, remember? No gay Faes, you said so.”

“That doesn’t mean it won’t—”

“Virge,” Patton says, patient, and Virgil shuts up.

“I love you,” Patton says, and it steals Virgil’s breath away.

It’s not the first time he’s said it. But it’s still new enough that it stuns him a little, every time—he’s not sure if that will ever stop.

“I love you,” Patton repeats. “I love that we’re gonna live together some day, and I’m gonna have three boyfriends to cuddle on and spoil. I love that I’m gonna be able to hang out with kids as my job one day. I love that you know when I need an extra hug without even asking me, and I love that your magic helps out so much. And I love that you’re probably gonna get me a cake-and-cookies dessert bar one day, ring or no ring. Everyone’s got their things they’re working on— _everyone,_  me and Logan and Roman too—and everything has things that they don’t really like about themselves. And I mean, _really._  Who ends up with the life they imagined? No one, that’s who.”

Virgil’s about to say something along the lines of _yeah, okay, but the curse_ , and Patton must read it on his face.

“No gay Faes,” he repeats. “No poly Faes, either. And, I mean. _Anyone_  could die and cut a relationship short. Anyone.”

“It’s not usually one of the people’s faults, though.”

“It wouldn’t be your fault,” Patton says. “You just told me that you can’t control magic. Plus, I mean, someone cursed your great-great-whatever-grandma, it’s not  _your_  fault that you were born.”

Virgil laughs. It’s a wet, desperate outburst of a laugh that sounds more like a sob, but it’s a laugh, nonetheless.

“Can I,” Patton says, lifting a hand, and Virgil nods.

Patton, carefully, soft, puts his hand against Virgil’s cheek, uses his thumb to wipe away his tears, and— _oh._

It’s not an overwhelming, crushing wave, like before. It’s gentle, like the lapping of water at his feet when he’s standing on the shore. It’s _calm-patience-concern..._

Love.

“Oh,” Patton says, eyes wide, and “ _Oh_. I can _feel_ you feeling that.”

“Shit, really,” Virgil says, about to jerk his face away.

“No, it’s—it’s—oh, _Virgil,_  honey, I’m so sorry we made you feel like that,” Patton says, eyes going a little distant. “And I’m really—“

_happy-glad-relieved_

“—that I’m making you feel better,” Patton continues, and Virgil takes hold of his wrist _curious-happy-awe_  and removes Patton’s hand from his face.

“I don’t want to catch you in a feedback loop or something if I start feeling bad again,” Virgil says, by way of explanation. 

Patton nods, but he looks a little regretful, flexing his hand in his lap.

“You really feel that way about me?”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but he couldn’t help but smirk. “What, you thought this whole boyfriend thing was just a joke?”

“Well, it’s just— _nice_ ,” Patton says. “To know for sure.”

Virgil licks his lips, and says, “It was nice for me too.”

“I’d be kissing you on the cheek right now,” Patton says. “And also, I love you.”

“I love you too,” Virgil says, and it gets a bit easier to say that every time. 

Patton’s smile whenever he does certainly doesn’t hurt.

Eventually, they get up, and walk back to an apartment, walking in to find it fully cleaned, and his other two boyfriends shuffling around sheepishly. 

“Sorry,” they say, simultaneously.

“What happened?” Logan adds, because of course he does.

“Magic thing,” Virgil says. “Um, surprise, I tuned into all your emotions at once, and also we owe Patton a massive dessert bar of cake and cookies.”

Patton flushes as Roman and Logan simultaneously ask, “ _What?”_

* * *

 

The third time, it’s a scam.

Logan’s out of town for a very important conference that they’re all very proud of him for, and Patton’s out of town for Pris and Poppy’s birthday, so Roman and Virgil are sulking in the apartment.

Or, that’s what Virgil _thinks_  will happen.

_i’m taking you on a fancy date and we’re sending selfies of us looking HAWT to patton and logan so they have something to pine over tonight_  Roman sends when Virgil’s in the middle of class. He sneaks his phone onto his lap, and manages to text Roman back while the professor is scrawling notes on the board.

_a fancy date?_

_reservations are all set,_  Roman sends, along with a screenshot, and Virgil’s eyebrows shoot up. 

It’s at a fancy restaurant Virgil’s only ever seen while driving by, and heard in the context of _my grandparents came to town for graduation_ : a _fancy-fancy_  place.

_big spender,_  Virgil sends back, because— _wow._

_i have a plan and everything,_  Roman sends back, _and i know you hate surprises but part of it’s gotta be a surprise okay? part of the plan kinda depends on you being surprised so_

Virgil swallows. _okay,_  he writes, then  _any requests on what i wear? or recommendations you know full well i’m useless_

_purple blazer, black tie, i’ll lay it all out for you,_  Roman sends back, then, _pay attention to class we all gotta get those diplomas_

Virgil smiles and puts his phone away.

When he gets home, the water is running. He bends to scratch Crow under the chin in the way she likes, before he straightens up. He puts his own surprise in the kitchen. The water shuts off once he does.

“I’m home,” he calls.

“Finally!” 

Roman emerges from the bedroom, a hand on the doorframe, the other holding the towel around his waist, and Virgil’s mouth goes dry.

Listen. He’s seen Roman shirtless before. They live together, they’ve been boyfriends for two years, he was shirtless the first time they _met,_  face-to-face. 

But a man can only hold up against so much, you know? Especially when his wet hair is curling on his forehead, and his eyelashes look even darker all clumped together and beaded with droplets, and his face is all pink from the heat of the shower, and there’s still water droplets clinging to his neck, falling down his arms and his chest and—

Wow. He’s so, so gay.

“Hey,” Virgil says, and Roman smirks, before pulling him in by the lapels of his hoodie.

Kissing. Kissing is also _fantastic,_  all close and nipping teeth and the gentle, barely-there teasing of a tongue, and when Roman draws back, Virgil can’t help but follow, chasing Roman’s lips, and he only opens his eyes when Roman giggles.

“You gotta shower,” he says, leans in to press a quick peck to Virgil’s cheek. “And also don’t mess up my hair, I _literally_  just got out of the shower.”

“How would I ever tell,” Virgil says dryly, tapping a foot at the (admittedly tiny) puddle pooling at Roman’s feet. “And I mean... at least I’m not messing your hair _after_  you style it.”

“If you do I will kill you,” Roman says brightly. “I have this _scheduled,_  so. Get in the shower for about fifteen minutes, I’ll do my hair while you’re in there, and I’ll do yours when you get out.”

“And then?”

“And then we’ll get dressed, and I prep you on the surprise but I don’t _spoil_  the surprise on the drive to the restaurant, and then...”

“And then?” Virgil prompts when he trails off.

Roman grins, and purrs, “It depends on how good you are.” He pushes Virgil gently towards the bathroom. 

“ _Shower.”_

“Your highness,” Virgil says, with a bow, and Roman’s laugh is barely cut off by Virgil shutting the door.

“I have a surprise for you in the kitchen,” he shouts through the door, before he turns on the water, drowning out whatever Roman might say next.

When he exits (wearing a robe, because Roman is the one between them more comfortable with walking around shirtless) Roman is partially dressed in the kitchen, wearing his slacks and a tank-top. He’s smiling fondly at the bouquet Virgil got for him, the bouquet he’s stuck into a water vase. He’s carefully cradling a red rose in his hand. He turns to Virgil, smiling. He moves to cup Virgil’s cheek, and Virgil catches his wrist, flips his hand so he can press a kiss to his palm, press his hand against his chest, a practiced motion.

“Tell me?”

Virgil draws closer, moves Roman’s hand to touch the rose again. “Red rose is true love,” he says, “and yellow is friendship, but together they’re excitement.”

“This one?” Roman asks, guiding their hands a spidery white flower.

“Angrec,” he says, and grins. “Royalty.”

Roman snorts, jostles him a little. Virgil is sure Logan would be groaning, if he was here. Patton would probably be delighted.

It goes on like that: Roman carefully touching a flower petal, and Virgil explaining each (anthurium for happiness, aster for trust, yellow and red chrysanthemums for  _precious one_  and _I love_  respectively, hibiscus for beauty, heliotrope and lavender for devotion.)

It’s a familiar routine, though, for Roman especially. Virgil’s bouquets aren’t traditionally pretty, or cohesive, but he picks each flower for their meanings. Roman has, quite literally, at least _acted_  like he’s swooning into Virgil’s arms any time Virgil gets him one, so. 

“Okay, o _kay,”_  Roman says, shaking himself, and kisses Virgil on the cheek. “Thank you for the bouquet, but it’s hair time, c’mon, we gotta get _pretty.”_

“Time for _me_ to get pretty, maybe,” Virgil mutters, and then immediately ducks his head. It takes Roman a second to get it, but then he smiles, pleased and a little embarrassed, so Virgil takes that as a victory.

-

“Okay, ready?” Virgil calls.

“Hang on,” Roman calls back, and Virgil rolls his eyes, reaching to straighten his tie, _again_ , because it seems like his tie gets crooked if he as much as _blinks._

 “Okay, _now_  I’m ready for my dramatic entrance,” Roman shouts, and Virgil fiddles with his tie before he drops his hands to his side.

“Come out, then,” Virgil says. 

“I did that when I was thirteen,” Roman says, and then he opens the door, and then Virgil’s brain stops.

Just for a moment. Just enough time for Virgil’s brain to go quiet in awe before he can actually start thinking again.

"You look _beautiful,”_  Virgil says, hushed, and Roman’s cheeks turn a shade of red lighter than his burgundy suit-and-vest.

“Well, shucks,” Roman says, before crossing the room. “You ain’t half bad yourself.”

Virgil snorts, and tilts up his chin a little as Roman takes a hold of his tie.

“How is it that you can never straighten your tie?”

“How dare you assume any part of me is straight,” Virgil says, a stolen joke (he forgets from who), and Roman laughs, before neatly untying and retying Virgil’s tie with neat, practiced motions, tucking it back under Virgil’s purple blazer.

“You look very handsome too, by the way,” Roman adds, sweeping his hands along Virgil’s shoulders, wiping off some kind of imaginary debris, tugging at his black lapels, and smiles at him, just the slightest curve of his lip. “I have to come up with more excuses to get you all in fancy-wear, I really do.”

Virgil tilts his head, and says, “Are you wearing makeup?”

“Mhm,” Roman says. “Not much—well, probably a lot by your standards, but. Concealer, foundation, brows. Bit of contour, too, but subtler than what I’d do onstage.”

“Lipstick?”

Roman grins. “Just chapstick, but I could if you want. I bet I have a color that matches the suit.”

“I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to mess anything up,” Virgil clarifies, though he does file _that_  particular mental image away.

Roman puckers his lips in response, and Virgil presses his lips against his: simple, chaste. It’s Roman, after all, for all he’s dressed in finery and looking like he’s stepped right off the pages of some kind of fashion magazine.

“Okay,” Roman says, “We take thirty selfies and send them to Logan and Patton, and we get going so I can warn you—”

“—without spoiling the surprise and knowing full well I don’t like surprises, right,” Virgil says. “And _just_ thirty?”

“Oh, if you don’t think I’m flagging down some poor waiter to take thirty _million_ candid pictures, you really don’t know me as well as I thought,” Roman says cheerfully, then, “Smile!”

Virgil scowls at Roman’s phone, just to be contrary, and is rewarded by Roman laughing at him. They take selfies of Virgil kissing Roman’s cheek, and Roman kissing Virgil’s cheek, and one of them kissing, and others that are just them smiling side by side, and one silly one, because Patton would have insisted on it, if he was with them.

Eventually, though, Roman slides into the driver’s seat, and Virgil in the passenger’s, and Roman starts talking once they get onto the street and start driving.

“Okay, so,” he says bluntly. “I am going to pull a stunt. This stunt will likely involve people watching us. I am kind of counting on people watching us.”

Virgil winces.

“ _However,”_  Roman says. “During this stunt, I’m gonna say a lot of stuff, and none of that will be a lie, okay? None of it. It’s all true. You can just sit there and say one little thing, and if my sources are correct, it will show you the basis of why I chose to go on a date here.”

“...sources.”

“Mhm,” Roman says. “Anyway. To summarize. I will be pulling a stunt, that stunt will involve me talking, and I won’t lie to you at all. You say one little thing at the end. I also realize that this stunt could be construed as being really insensitive, on my part, but I am trying to walk the line of not spoiling it and communicating with you beforehand, so.”

Virgil grins. “Patton would be so proud of you.”

“Oh, yeah, and I’d recommend we _don’t_  tell Patton about this stunt,” Roman says hastily. “However, I _did_  run it by Logan, and he thinks it’s a good idea as long as I prefaced it with, one, I’m not gonna lie to you, and two, I know that some of the things I will do slash say will freak you out and I’m apologizing preemptively, and three, benefits that are also part of the surprise, so.”

Virgil relaxes. “You should have opened with that, you know I trust Logan’s judgment way more than yours.”

“Fuck you,” Roman says mildly, “my judgment is fantastic.”

“You climbed up the side of my house once,” Virgil says. “You _literally_ climbed a tower.”

“Yeah, _but_ , look at where we are now,” Roman argues. “Two years later, about to graduate in three months—“

Virgil groans.

“—two years of boyfriendship in, c’mon, climbing your literal tower of isolation was a _great_  move.”

“Okay, but consider this,” Virgil says. “ _You climbed a tower without safety measures.”_

Roman, without taking his eyes off the road, flicks Virgil’s ear. Virgil vows to himself to pay him back, when paying him back would not result in Roman running them off the road from all the shrieking and slap-fighting that would surely ensue, because in some ways, Virgil and Roman were still twelve like they were when they first met.

He does after they pull up to the restaurant and gives their keys to the valet (There’s a _valet_  at this place, okay, to a guy whose experience with restaurants is “fast food and diners” this is kind of _a lot.)_ Virgil reaches over to pinch Roman’s earlobe and scuttles out of arm’s reach, snickering at the outraged look on his face.

_Payback,_  Virgil mouths, and Roman rolls his eyes but proffers his elbow. Virgil, approaching hesitantly, takes it.

Roman _does_  stamp on his foot by the time the approach the front desk, though, and the chirpy little “oopsie!” means that this is _not over._

“Reservation for Prince,” Roman tells the hostess, who runs her finger down the list and smiles.

“A booth in the back is still okay?”

Virgil tries not to smile when Roman nods, because Roman would probably like to get a table where he could see the room, and the room could see him, and a view of outside would be a bonus. A booth in the back meant that they could see the room, but the room wouldn’t be able to readily see them: the way _Virgil_  liked it.

“Please,” Roman says, and the hostess picks up two menus and leads them to the back of the room.

The restaurant’s dimly lit, which Virgil really thought was just a stereotype before walking into this place. The tables are covered with white cloth, and there’s someone playing classy acoustic guitar in a corner, almost drowned out by the murmuring din of the other diners.

“I’d pull out your chair, but, ya know,” Roman says, gesturing. Virgil slides into the booth’s side that allows him to have his back to the wall, and Roman takes the seat that allows him to see people in the framed mirror near their table.

Virgil kicks Roman in the shin as soon as they sit down.

“Hey!”

“Oopsie,” Virgil says innocently. Roman’s eyes narrow, and Virgil hides his smile behind the menu, and then has a minor stroke when he looks at the wine list.

“Roman,” he begins.

“Breathe,” Roman says, firm. “I’m handling it. It’s fine, it’s covered.”

“Roman, there is _Dom Pérignon_  for _over a thousand dollars_  on this menu like that’s a _common thing_  people _order_  here.”

“Virgil,” Roman says patiently, “Are you gonna order a bottle of Dom Pérignon?”

Virgil chokes out, “ _No.”_

“So it’s fine,” Roman says, and adds, “Trust me.”

Virgil hesitates, and sighs, shoulders slumping. “You’re _sure,”_  he checks.

“I’m sure,” Roman says, and reaches over to squeeze his hand. “Tell me about your day?”

Virgil relents.

That’s how it goes, debating the pros and cons of each dish in between chatting about their days. Roman regales him with the latest tale in the saga of The Cocky Freshman, who is a slightly hilarious parallel to how Virgil used to think Roman was as a person during their freshman year, except as an _actual_  person. Roman becomes offended whenever Virgil points this out, and Virgil hastens to assure him he doesn’t _still_  think that, but—

“Hello, gentlemen, and welcome. Can I get you started with anything other than water this evening?”

Virgil cuts off his laughing, pressing his lips together, and Roman arches a brow at him. “Wine?”

“You know more than me,” Virgil says, which is true, but Virgil would also be the exact kind of idiot to accidentally blurt out that he wanted three bottles of Dom Pérignon, so.

Roman nods and asks for a sample of some wine that sounds French and fancy, because that is apparently a thing you can do in restaurants when ordering French and fancy wine. They do the obligatory show-the-ID’s thing, which is still kinda new to Virgil, and the waitress sweeps away as silently as she’d approached.

“Okay, so, I’m gonna get the... um, chicken cordon bleu, what have you decided on?” Roman asks, and Virgil looks at the menu.

“The cavatelli, I think?”

Roman scans the description, and snorts. “You want the rich people mac-and-cheese?”

“You say that is if you’re not about to order the rich person equivalent of stuffed chicken nuggets,” Virgil says archly.

Roman purses his lips, and admits, “Point.”

They try the fancy French wine—it is very good, Roman’s good taste prevails, as usual—and end up ordering it, and their dishes, too.

They spend the wait texting Logan about the fancy restaurant, and fielding Patton’s texts about the birthday party he’s supervising for his Dad, which includes _many_  delightful photos of Patton in a onesie, makeup, a facemask, and with his nails being painted, in various combinations.

When the food comes, they are too busy eating and saying “I would sell all of the organs I don’t need for survival to get this daily” in as many creative ways they can.

Like. Genuinely, all mac and cheese might be _ruined_  for him after this, which is saying something.

Once Virgil’s ensuring he’s gotten every last noodle, he looks up at Roman, grinning.

“I don’t even care about the stunt, this was too goddamn good,” Virgil says happily.

“Good, because I’m about to do it,” Roman says.

“Wha—?”

Roman slides out of the booth, and gets down on one knee.

“Virgil,” he begins. “We started talking when we were twelve, and one of the first things you told me was that men are idiots.”

Virgil laughs at the old joke, more out of habit than anything, because he’s too busy attempting to get through the shock, staring at the tiny velvet box in Roman’s hands.

“When you stopped, I was so upset I cried myself to sleep for about a week, and I was sad about it for a lot longer,” Roman says, eyes wide and earnest and fixed on him. “I still hate your awful great-aunt, by the way.” 

Virgil can’t help the near-hysterical giggle that escapes him, _because Roman is on one knee with a ringbox right now._

“But when I realized you were right in front of me, _the whole time,_ and even then we were still antagonizing each other, and I couldn’t describe the emotions I felt that day if you paid me. When I realized that you were here all along. It’s the best surprise I’ve ever had in my life.”

“Me too,” Virgil manages, because: yes. Yes, that day was one of the rare times when a surprise was good.

“And then you keep on surprising me, every single day.” Roman laughs, a wild thing. “And you keep on making fun of me. Every single day.”

“And you keep on making fun of me,” Virgil says through numb lips. “Every single goddamn day.”

“I want us to keep doing that,” Roman says, beaming. “I want us to keep... to keep making fun of each other. And you make an idiot out of me, every single day, because you were right. Men really are idiots. I love you, Virgil Owens Fae. Would you do me the honor of spending the rest of our lives together?”

Virgil doesn’t even have to think before the answer.

“Yes,” Virgil says, and laughs. “Yes, Roman. _Yes.”_

Roman beams, then, surging to an awkward half-crouch to kiss him, and there was a smattering of “awws” and polite applause.

Oh. People had been watching them?

“The ring, babe,” Roman says, amused, and Virgil says “oh!” and sticks out his hand. Roman slides the ring on, and leans in to whisper in his ear.

“Thanks for cooperating with the stunt.”

Oh. Right. It was a stunt. A stunt Roman had promised he wouldn’t lie in, and that Virgil would have to say one little thing at the end, and—

Wait. It was a _stunt_.

_What the hell does that say about me that I thought Roman was really proposing and I said yes?_  Virgil thinks wildly, thumbing the ring—and where did Roman even _get_ a ring?!

“No lies,” Virgil checks, and Roman, looking nervous, slides back into his seat, reaches over and squeezes his hand.

“No lies,” he agrees, the barest whisper. “You’ll notice I didn’t say _marry me.”_

Virgil licks his lips, and whispers back, “I wasn’t lying either.”

Roman’s lips part into a surprised little _o,_  but they can’t talk anymore, because someone in a suit has stopped in front of their table.

“Gentlemen, may I be the first to offer congratulations?”

“You may,” Roman says, beam back in place—yes, just the little look in his eyes that makes it clear he’s acting right now.

“On behalf of all of us, we’d like to bring you some champagne. Your meal will be free of charge, by way of congratulations,” the manager says, turning to Virgil with a benevolent smile, and Roman winks conspiratorially behind his back. Virgil has to press his lips together to keep from laughing.

“Well, that’s so nice of you,” Virgil manages to say. “Thanks so much.”

“May I bring a dessert menu?”

Roman and Virgil exchange a glance.

“We’re celebrating,” Roman says decisively. “Yes, please.”

-

“You absolute scam artist,” Virgil accuses, as soon as they get out of the car, safely back home, and Roman smiles as he shuts the car door behind him.

“You’re not mad?”

“No, I get why Logan said there would be benefits, now,” Virgil says, “ _and_  why we shouldn’t tell Patton.”

“Yeah, he’d probably disapprove,” Roman agrees, skipping in front so he could open the front door for Virgil. “But. Seriously. Not mad, not upset, not anything?”

“No, why would I be upset?” Virgil says, and Roman looks over at him with a little frown, catching Virgil’s hand in his, tugging him inside and shutting the door behind him.

“I know even talking about commitment freaks you out,” Roman says. “You know, with the curse and all.”

Virgil’s brain shuts off for the third time that night.

“Oh,” he hears his voice say. 

“Shit, I said something, didn’t I?” Roman says. “I’m sorry, I know it was sketchy, and I know you hate public things, and—”

“No,” Virgil says, and then squeezes Roman’s hand to the point of it almost being painful. “No. _Roman._  I didn’t think of the curse at all.”

“I,” Roman says, and frowns. “What do you mean?”

“I mean,” Virgil says, hearing his voice get a little hysterical, “I didn’t think of the curse. _At all._  It’s like I forgot about it. Like I didn’t even know it existed. Like I forgot _magic_  existed.”

He must be looking panicked, because Roman guides him to the couch, takes both Virgil’s hands in his.

“Okay, but. But that might be a good thing, right?”

“Roman, I _forgot,”_  Virgil chokes out. “I forgot that you said it was a stunt, I forgot about the curse, I—”

“Wait, you forgot it was a stunt?” Roman says, looking a little dumbstruck himself.

“—Roman, I didn’t even think about what that might—”

“Virgil, can we go back to the part where you forgot it was a stunt, and you said _yes?!”_

Virgil blinks at him, entirely thrown off. “You... you said it wasn’t a lie.”

“It wasn’t, it wasn’t,” Roman says, quick and reassuring. 

“Okay, yeah, like I said, me either.”

“But. I mean.” Roman licks his lips, and says in a small voice, “You’d really marry me if we could?”

_Oh._

_“Roman,”_  Virgil says. “Has the whole ‘true love’ thing really gone over your head? You’re the one who _likes_  all those fairy tales.”

“Okay, first of all, you love Disney too, do not even try to deny it, it’s how we became friends,” Roman says, “secondly, I just—I dunno. We’re all freaked out by commitment, and we haven’t even graduated college yet, I just. I dunno. You really... you would?”

Virgil bites his lip, and he nods, sweeping his thumbs over Roman’s knuckles.

“I love you,” Virgil says simply, and adds, “Idiot.”

Roman’s lips twitch up, and then he says, “Since it was a fake proposal, and all? Maybe that’s why your brain didn’t freak out. Because you were kinda shocked by _that_  being the stunt, but you remembered everything I said about it beforehand.”

“Yeah,” Virgil says, seizing on that explanation. “Yeah, that’s... that’s probably it.”

“Okay,” Roman says. “Mutual freakouts all talked out?”

“Or at least surpressed for another day.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s more like it. Wanna distract ourselves by making out?”

“Yeah,” Virgil echoes, grinning, “okay.”

* * *

 

The fourth time, it is after Virgil fucks up very, very badly.

Dreams are supposed to be Fae domain. Virgil’s had a few potentially prophetic dreams in his time, but they’re rare and tend to be insignificant for him. (for instance, his first was at ten and cautioning him that Auntie Cora was changing the diner menu, which she’d already told him about that day, so.)

His dad’s domain was the future.

He read leaves easily, he had the vague prophetic dreams, he even dreamwalked, if Virgil’s memories are actually reliable. He’d prophesize. 

It only stings a little that he’s never really been able to do that, connect some of his ability to his dad’s; the closest he can get are tarot and leaves, and even then, Virgil’s focus tends to be on the present, the past, big future events.

It stings more now that it’s the eighteenth anniversary of his death; that Virgil is close to getting older than his father ever was with each and every year.

It’s not like he _means_  to fuck up. He’s done something along these lines a million times: dig in the grimoires for a recipe, check it thrice, put it into action, whether it was a spell or a potion or a ritual. 

He still doesn’t know where he went wrong, and he’s not technically the best person to tell the story, since he was asleep the whole time: he’ll give that to someone else.

-

The brain is a fascinating thing to study. There’s so much unknown about something that runs so much of their lives. The science behind gut feelings and intuition specifically; that there is something scientifically viable about “good vibes” and “bad vibes,” your brain picking up on patterns and chemical signals too quick to consciously comprehend.

Logan’s gut starts to clench as soon as he approaches the house and he sees Crow in the windows, clawing at the curtains.

It’s unlike her. She’s a remarkably well-behaved cat. So he hastens to the door and opens it.

That’s when the sound hits him, like a wave—the cats, all the cats in the house, all yowling, as if they’re screaming at him, screaming _for_  him. Logan hastily shuts the door behind him.

“Virgil?” Logan shouts over the noise. “Virgil, your cats are menaces, we’re going to get a noise complaint.”

No response. Why wouldn’t he respond? What would put the cats in such a state?

He doesn’t have time to think of that, though, as Crow rushes at him in a streak of black, and comes to a stop, tail lashing, before she moves, turning to check that he’s following.

Logan does, and at first, he almost laughs, he isn’t sure what’s wrong. It’s just Virgil, napping on the couch. At first glance, it’s fine. Almost normal.

Almost.

The room smells strongly of sage and something else, something strong—gasoline, or hairspray, or something similarly chemical and overpowering. Virgil’s laying in a way that must crick his neck, though. He’s on his back, head resting uncomfortably upright on the arm of the couch, with no pillows to support. One of his arms dangles off the edge of the couch, the other hand resting on his stomach. 

The arm dangling off the couch has blood on it. Logan hastens forward, takes his arm, turns to inspect it as Crow leaps up onto Virgil’s chest, kneading anxiously.

There’s clawmarks. Clawed deep enough for him to have been bleeding sluggishly, the lines of blood going down his arm uninterrupted and gone dry—and there’s a corresponding rusty color on one of Crow’s paws.

There’s that, too. The cats yowling, Crow jumping on his chest, Crow clawing his arm, Logan shouting for him, Logan taking his arm—that would wake Virgil up. He isn’t exactly a deep sleeper, though he does take naps sporadically, it’s to make up for his troubled sleep.

“Virgil,” Logan tries. No response.

“Virgil. Wake up.” He nudges Virgil’s shoulder a little—only Virgil just shifts when he does, and still he lies there, still, unresponsive.

Logan tries to swallow. “Virgil,” he says, louder, and grabs both of his shoulders, shaking him harder. “Virgil. Wake _up.”_

Virgil moves when he shakes him, and when Logan lets go, he just... flops back. Like he’s...

“Virgil,” Logan repeats, voice shaking, and puts one hand under his nose, the other finding his pulse on his neck.

Yes. Yes, there it is—pulse a bit slow, but he’s breathing, so he’s not _that_  horribly off, it just seems like he’s asleep, except...

Except there’s a glass bottle on the ground, a direct trajectory, as if Virgil had dropped it in his sleep. Logan frowns, and picks it up—there’s a little liquid left, at the bottom when he picks it upright, and he wafts the scent toward himself cautiously (he remembers his lab etiquette, thank you.)

Yes. The scent—sage and... _something._  Logan gags, holding the bottle away from him, and stoppers the bottle cautiously, setting it aside.

"Virgil,” he repeats, and tries shaking him, one last time. It doesn’t work. Logan swallows, and reaches over to peel an eyelid open—his pupil doesn’t constrict or dilate, not even when he tries shining his phone’s flashlight into his eye.

Logan tries to swallow, and tries to swallow again.

“Virgil,” he croaks.

( _His heart is beating,_ Logan tells himself. _His heart is beating. He’s breathing.)_

He’s unlocking his phone and calling before he can even think.

“Heyo, braniac, I knew you couldn’t keep away from my dulcet—“

“ _Roman,”_ Logan bursts out, and he distantly notices how he sounds like he’s on the edge of tears, “Roman, something’s wrong, you have to come home, something’s—”

“Whoa whoa whoa, hey, what’s wrong? What do you mean?”

Logan tries to swallow, tries again.

“Logan, baby,  _breathe._  What’s wrong?”

“I,” Logan begins, but it sticks in his throat, and he has to force the words through. “I found Virgil on the couch, and he’s—he’s breathing, but he’s not waking up, Roman, no matter what I try, he isn’t—he isn’t waking up, he’s just—”

Roman swears; it’s quiet, low, almost like he’s saying a prayer in church.

“I think it’s a potion,” Logan says, pressing a little too hard against Virgil’s pulse point, because his heart’s beating, so that must mean he’ll be okay, “There was a potion bottle on the ground, like he dropped it or something—”

“Well, hey,” Roman says. “Maybe it’s—maybe it’s just a really deep sleep potion or something. Like a superpowered nap.”

Logan tries to breathe. “Yeah,” he says, but it sounds wrong, leaving his mouth, sounds wrong having heard all the cats, seen Crow so distressed. “Yeah, maybe, but I—can you—?”

“Hey, I’m already moving to ditch, don’t even ask,” Roman says firmly. “I’ll pick up Patton too, okay?”

Logan can breathe a little easier, then. Not like normal, but a bit easier.

“I—yes. Yes, please. Do that.”

“Okay. I’ll call him too.”

“Okay,” Logan manages to say. “I—okay. I’ll.. I’ll—”

“Lo?”

“Yes?”

“If it’s a magic thing, maybe call Cora so she can get a hold of Dee?”

Oh. Of course. Of course he should call and try to get in touch with the person who would know about it.

“Right,” he says through numb lips. “Right, of course, I’ll call Cora.”

“Okay. Hey, I love you, okay? We’ll be home as soon as we can. He’ll be okay.”

Logan swallows, brushes a hand up Virgil’s neck, to tilt his too-pale face toward him. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I love you.”

“Yeah, I—I love you too,” Logan croaks, and hangs up, only to dial again.

“Auntie Cora’s diner, how can I—?”

“Cora,” Logan says. “I’m so sorry to cut over you, but do you have Dee’s number, I’m afraid it’s urgent. Does he have a phone?”

“Logan?” Cora asks, and she sounds confused, but he can’t—

“Does he have a phone?” Logan repeats, desperation edging his voice. “I need—I need to—”

“I—hon, he doesn’t have a phone, but he’s here havin’ lunch if you—is everything okay?”

“I think Virgil’s taken some kind of potion,” Logan says, “and he’s not waking up, and I don’t—he isn’t waking up, Cora, he’s breathing but he’s not—”

“I’m getting him,” Cora says. “I’m getting him, just—just one second, okay?”

“Okay,” Logan repeats, moves to grip at Virgil’s wrist to feel at his pulse again.

It must be less than thirty seconds but it feels like forever before Virgil’s Uncle—Dee, right—says, “Logan.”

“I think Virgil took some kind of potion,” Logan says. “I—his heart is beating and he’s breathing, a bit slow, but he—he isn’t waking up, Crow clawed him and she seems anxious and the cats were just _howling_ and I tried shaking him and shining a light in his eyes but he’s not waking up, he’s not—”

“Speed up,” Dee snaps, and Logan shuts up. That means either _slow down_  or _shut up,_  he thinks, maybe, Virgil’s usually the one who translates— 

“The potion?”

“I—there’s a bit left in the bottle,” Logan says, forcing himself to speak evenly. “It’s black—no, wait, really dark green. It smells like sage and something really... _chemical_ , I suppose? Like gasoline or hairspray or something similar.”

“Recipe?” 

“I haven’t looked around yet.” Logan says, barely biting back his _your nephew looking lifeless has taken most of my attention._

“Don’t try to find that, as slowly as you can,” Virgil’s Uncle says. “Do you know the time he wouldn’t have drunk it?”

“I—no, Virgil’s usually alone in the mornings,” Logan says, standing. Virgil usually makes potions in one of the spare rooms or in the kitchen. He carefully moves Virgil’s dangling hand to his chest, though—if it’s been dangling like that for hours, he must have lost feeling in it, by now.

“Enough time for Crow to have clawed him and for him to have bled and stopped bleeding, enough time for blood to dry. No more than six hours ago, I don’t think, that’s when I left, he was sleeping then. Normally, I mean.”

He crosses to the kitchen, and yes, there, not cleaned up, which was unlike Virgil—a cutting board and a pile of finely cut herbs, some residue still stuck to the knife, a grimoire left open on the counter. Logan squints—it’s an older one, in odd calligraphy, with faded ink and strange spellings.

And when he takes a moment to mentally translate, Logan frowns.

“Why would Virgil want a potion to increase chances of prophetic dreaming?” He asks, more to himself than anyone else, and Virgil’s Uncle makes a noise like he’s been _punched._

Logan picks up the grimoire and scans the list of ingredients for anything that would make that awful chemical smell, but nothing out of the ordinary—sage, a lot of it, mugwort, xhosa dream root, blue lotus—some things not grown in the house or the garden, Logan’s fairly sure, but nothing _outrageous._ Logan flips it to see the cover, the spine, where some kind of marking would usually be, but. Nothing.

“This is one of the older grimoires,” Logan continues, frowning. “I’m not sure which, it’s not marked, but—”

“If it’s not marked, it’s not Maria’s,” Virgil’s Uncle says, a little hollowly. “Are you _certain_ it’s not marked?”

Logan checks the cover, outside and in, the spine, the first few pages. 

“Nothing.”

Dee curses at length, and then—

“Hi, Logan, it’s Cora— _stop swearing in my diner, Dee Fae, you are not too old to stop me from hauling you out by your ear—_ I figured I ought to translate. He wants you to bring Virgil, and the grimoire, and as much as the potion as you can to him. Right now.”

Something in Logan’s stomach turns icy.

“Does he think—is it—did something go very wrong?” He forces out through numb lips.

“He thinks he should be able to reverse it,” she says, neatly side-stepping the question. “Are you home alone?”

Logan swallows, shoves his hair out of his face. “Roman and Patton are on their way home.”

“As soon as they get there, you come to Ligerion.”

“Is he—is he gonna be okay?” Logan asks, fingers tightening on the page, before he forces himself to let go before he tears it.

A pause. 

“Dee’ll get him back to normal, honey,” she says. “Go get together what you’ll need for an overnight bag, I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Logan swallows. That pause was too long for comfort. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll—I’ll call. When we’re on the way.”

“Keep an eye on our boy, all right?” She says.

“I will, I promise,” he says, and hangs up, goes back into the living room, clutching the grimoire to his chest before sitting at the couch again.

“Hey,” Logan says, reaches out to touch Virgil’s face. Hearing is a strong sense for—for people sleeping. (Coma victims, too, but this wasn’t—this wasn’t a _coma._  Was it?)

“If you wake up and we’re halfway to Ligerion, I’m going to be so angry with you,” Logan says, as if if Virgil sprung awake right now Logan wouldn’t nearly collapse in relief. "And you’d have to be the one who’d call to explain to Cora and your Uncle that you’re actually okay. I don’t like talking to your Uncle, you know that.”

He sets aside the grimoire then and folds up one of Virgil’s hands in both of his, squeezing tight.

“ _And_  you have to come up with an explanation if the neighbors complain about the cats being so loud,” he adds. Crow lets out a dissenting hiss—Logan had nearly forgotten about her.

He glances around—actually, there is a slightly absurd number of cats in his living room right now, staring fixedly at Virgil, and thereby at him. How had he not noticed all the cats?

“Sorry,” he adds, awkwardly. He has no idea if they understand him the way they understand Virgil.

He looks back at Virgil’s face, rubs his thumb along Virgil’s knuckles.

“I wouldn’t be mad, really,” Logan feels the urge to clarify. “I’d be very happy if you woke up, actually. Told me I was worrying too much and that’s your job, how dare I step on your toes, or something. How dare I call everyone, don’t I know that’s _embarrassing,_  and that you’re _fine,_ get off your back, who am I, _Patton?”_

Another pause. Virgil’s face is still as ever.

“You need to tell me why you focused on prophetic dreams, when you wake up,” he adds. “I can’t remember if you’ve ever mentioned it before. You usually tell me when you’re going to try something different. It doesn’t seem like something you’d be interested in.”

On and on he talks, and on and on, Virgil doesn’t respond.

-

_There’s a woman behind the soda bar that Virgil only distantly recognizes._

_He can only distantly recognize that he’s at the soda counter, too—it seems much taller than usual, but he doesn’t really care about that right now, too busy staring at the woman’s back._

_There’s the distant rumble of noise, like someone’s got the radio turned onto a talk show, except Cora hates radio talk shows, said if she wanted to listen to someone ramble about music or politics she’d ask the nearest customer, thanks very much. It keeps fading in and out like a radio, anyway, snatches of words that Virgil can’t quite catch. The woman’s voice is much clearer._

_She’s murmuring to herself—the way Cora does whenever she’s making sure an order is all right on the plate before they go out to the tables—and she turns, then, smiling._

_He recognizes that face. He recognizes that outfit, even—he’s only ever seen her like this in photo albums, though._

_“Mama,” Virgil says, and his voice sounds high-pitched, even to his own ears.  
_

_She leans to smile at him, pinches his cheek gently in her hands._

_“Virgil, baby, I know you’re sleepy,” she says, braids swinging. Another plate appears on the counter behind her. “But I want you to listen, okay? And remember.”  
_

_Virgil knows this. “I did, Mom,” he says. “I did. You told me—”_

_“When I was a little younger than you are now—“  
_

_“Your parents died,” Virgil continues, voice the barest whisper. He could recite this in his sleep. Another plate appears.  
_

_She continues like he hasn’t even talked. Another plate appears.“And I moved to Loch Ligerion to live with my Auntie Cora and my Uncle Virgil.”_

_Another plate appears._

_“Mom? Mom, you told me this. You told me this before bed the night before you died.”  
_

_“Yes, exactly like you,” she says. Another plate appears. “We named you after him.”  
_

_“ **Mom,”**  Virgil tries to shout, but no matter how loud he yells, how many things he throws, how much he moves his stubby, tiny legs, she doesn’t look away from the counter where he’d been sitting, smiling and smiling and smiling even as the plates behind her stacked so high they started toppling, ceramic shattering on the ground, except for when it starts to splash into the dark, black water sinking into the restaurant.  
_

_She doesn’t stop talking even when Virgil has to swim to the counter to stand—she doesn’t stop talking when her face is swallowed up by the water—she doesn’t stop talking—_

-

“—that time, you know, back when we were in the dorms and it smelled so awful we had to crack the windows for three days, even though there was a snowstorm? Looking back, I don’t see why you didn’t just curse him right then and there, it’d have saved us trouble, down the line—”

“Logan, hey, we’re home,” Roman calls, as Patton drops their bags and starts moving forward immediately.

“Living room,” his voice floats, and he and Patton exchange a glance before entering the living room before coming to a dead stop.

“Whoa,” Patton says faintly.

_Whoa_  is right. There are more cats congregated within this room than he’s ever seen in one room before, maybe even including pet stores and adoption sites. Logan pushes his glasses up with one hand, doesn’t let go of Virgil’s hand, tries to smile.

“Hey,” Logan says, voice tight. 

Roman’s already crossing the room to pull Logan into an awkward hug—he’s hunched over him, and Logan hasn’t gotten up from where he’s perched on the edge of the couch, only hugging him with one arm, the other hand still holding Virgil’s.

“Not stirring at all, huh?” Roman asks.

Logan says, “Virgil’s Uncle wants us to bring him down to Ligerion.”

Oh. Oh, _shit,_  it’s bad, then.

“I—I should have packed a bag,” Logan says, “I should have packed before you came home—”

“No, it’s okay,” Patton says quickly, “I got everything, don’t you worry. Bags’re still in the closet, right?”

“Should be,” Logan says, and Patton rushes up the stairs.

"Should we move him into the car, do you think?” Roman asks.

“I—yes, probably,” Logan says. “Do you need a hand, or—?”

“No, I think I got him,” Roman says, “Just—grab the...” he gestures vaguely to the grimoire and potion bottle on the table.

“Right,” Logan says, and moves to get Crow off Virgil’s chest. Crow digs her claws into Virgil, and crouches, hissing, ears flattened, and Logan snatches his hands away, as if she was about to claw him.

“Crow,” Roman says. “Crow, I’m about to move Virgil, if you could get off? And keep an eye on him while we’re getting everything packed up.”

Crow hesitates, considering, before she leaps to the ground.

“Thank you,” he tells her, because it can’t hurt to be polite. Logan moves off the edge of the couch, and Roman bends, carefully worming his arms under the crook of Virgil’s knees and bracing along his shoulders, before he lifts with his legs, not his back, because the last thing they needed was for Roman to throw out his back right now.

Virgil’s a bit heavy, and his head lolls back when Roman lifts him all the way, and Roman’s stomach churns to see it. He shuffles his grip a little, just to be sure he doesn’t drop him.

“It’s a shame he’s not awake,” Roman jokes weakly, “However, I will make fun of him until the end of time that I had to do this, regardless.”

Logan laughs, equally weakly, and Patton clatters down the stairs, holding three duffle bags that looked like they were stuffed full of the first clothes that he laid eyes on.

“Ready to go?” Patton says, and Logan nods, careful to grab the potion bottle and the grimoire, and moves to the front of their strange procession: Logan, Roman carrying an unconscious Virgil, a cat, and Patton weighted down with bags.

Logan opens the front door, and Roman has to squeeze them through sideways to make sure he doesn’t bump Virgil’s head on a doorframe, and Logan opens the door to the backseat, where Roman manages to get him in, lying mostly horizontally, as Patton puts the duffles in the trunk.

Logan reaches for the keys Patton is holding, and Patton snatches them away, frowning.

“What are you doing?”

“I can drive,” Logan says, a stubborn set to his mouth.

“You’re panicking and I need you to navigate, so no, you’re not,” Patton says stubbornly.

“Patton, I’m—”

“We don’t have time to argue about you denying that you’re feeling emotions right now, and we can trade off,” Patton says bluntly. “I’ll take first shift. I have the most experience with, one, driving while emotionally freaking out, two, looking into the backseat while driving, and three, _I’m driving._  The longer we argue, the longer Virgil has to wait. Clear?”

Patton doesn’t get bossy very often, but when he does, it _works._ Roman and Logan exchange a glance, before they get into the car.

They manage to buckle Virgil in the middle, but he mostly just lays across them—head in Roman’s lap, legs curled up in Logan’s—as Patton reaches back absently and drives one-handed, the other holding one of Virgil’s hands. Crow claims the place where Virgil’s feet would normally go, staring up at him intently.

Logan starts messing with his phone as soon as they hit the highway.

“Cora? Yes, it’s Logan... yes, we’re on the highway, we’ll be swapping off drivers as we go... No, there’s been no change... yes, me too... I will... All right. See you soon.”

More fussing, and then: music.

Logan sets his phone in a cupholder, so the sound radiates better, a stubborn set to his jaw. It’s a song that’s more suited to Virgil than Logan—drums and guitar and emo lyrics.

“People absorb sound in their sleep,” he says, stiff. “You’ve seen it on TV.”

“You mean like how doctors tell people to talk to coma victims?” Roman says, and immediately wants to go back in time to punch himself at the way Logan goes even stiffer.

“Yes,” he says, quiet. “Same concept.”

Roman reaches over, squeezes his shoulder, mouths _sorry_  when he looks at him. Logan sighs, squeezes his hand.

“That’s a smart idea, Lo,” Patton says from the front. “Was that why you were talking to him when we came in?”

“Yes,” Logan says. “I thought maybe—I don’t know, that it would help,” he admits, cheeks going red.

“It’s a good idea,” Roman reaffirms. “He always listens to music on long car rides, he’d like this.”

“He always listens to music, period,” Patton says fondly. “Sometimes I wonder if his headphones are surgically attached.”

Roman snorts, cards his fingers through Virgil’s hair, brushes against the shell of his ear. “I can’t believe you’ve managed to con us into listening to your emo music the _whole_  car ride and you’re not even awake to be obnoxious about it,” Roman tells him. “The _audacity.”_

_“Audio-_ city,” Patton suggests, and Roman laughs as Logan groans. 

That’s how the car ride passes; they pull over twice, to swap in Roman to drive, and then Logan, but for the most part, they let Virgil’s music play, never skipping a song, and make little comments like _oh I remember I walked him on him singing this song once while he was doing dishes and he wouldn’t look at me the rest of the day, he was so shy back then,_  or _I made him dance with me to this one once, I bet I still remember the choreography_ , letting the conversation carry and stretch over the tension filling the car.

Crow moves around a lot; from the space where Virgil’s feet should be, to just close enough that she’d be in his arms, in the space behind his knees, even puts her head on his cheek, at one point. Roman reaches out to pet her a little, sometimes; it’s nice to know that she was looking out for him while they were away, that she loves him as much as he loves her.

Those comments happen less and less the closer they get to Ligerion; they don’t say anything at all by the time Logan pulls off the highway exit and starts the meandering path to House Fae, which is over exceedingly bumpy dirt roads. No matter how badly Virgil jostles, he doesn’t react, and it—

It’s not. A great feeling, being the one to help hold him still as Patton makes sure his head doesn’t hit anything. Because Virgil’s usually such a light sleeper, he’s been known to wake up if Roman’s too noisy getting up to get _water_  in the middle of the night, and—

“Here,” Logan says tersely, and at last reaches to shut off the music, turning back to face them. “Do you need help getting him out?”

“I think we can manage it,” Patton says. “Roman, I think—should we carry him together, arms-over-shoulders?”

“Yeah,” Roman says. “Yeah, okay, I’ll—I’ll slide out and come back around and we can get him out together, with Logan as backup to make sure we don’t drop him?”

“Gotcha,” Logan says.

It’s a bit of a production, but once they slide him out of the car and onto the ground, it’s manageable. Once they stand with his arms around their shoulders, Roman and Patton both wrapping an arm around his waist, the door flies open. 

“Get _out,”_ Virgil’s Uncle snaps, from where he’s beckoning them rapidly to the front door, and Logan dives back into the car to grab the grimoire and the potion as Roman and Patton shuffle Virgil forward, Virgil’s head lolling and bare feet dragging on the ground.

Cora’s waiting inside, and she says “ _Boys”_ and gestures them to a fold-out couch that’s already been made up.

“Patton, his head,” Roman says, and they slowly guide him to sitting, Patton taking the brunt of his upper body weight as Roman carefully swings his feet so they’re on the bed, Patton adjusting him so he’s laying down with his head on the pillow.

Crow leaps up immediately to curl onto the space of the pillow unoccupied by Virgil’s head, and Cora almost smiles when she sees her, settling a blanket on top of Virgil.

“You had a stowaway, hm?”

“She’s been looking after him all day,” Roman says, turns Virgil’s arm and frowns at the dried blood—he’d noticed it but they hadn’t had any time to clean his arm up. “Tried waking him up, too.”

Cora makes a soft noise, but it’s interrupted by Dee carrying an armful of magic supplies into the room, dumping them unceremoniously on the coffee table.

“Potion,” he snaps at Logan, who hastily hands over the bottle. 

Roman doesn’t pay attention to what he does next—Cora’s taken a seat on the bed, taking Virgil’s hand and stretching his arm out, dabbing it softly with a wet wipe she’s taken out of her purse.

Roman takes his other hand, pushes it against Roman’s cheek, before he kisses his palm, then holds Virgil’s hand to his chest, wrapped up in both of Roman’s hands.

The first time Virgil had done that, very early in their relationship, he’d blushed such a cute shade of pink when Roman reached over to cup his cheek. Taken Roman’s hand in his, kissed his palm, then pressed Roman’s hand against his chest. He’d done it more and more, with more and more confidence each time, and Roman was so, so proud of him every single time.

_You gotta wake up,_  Roman thinks. _You gotta get up so I can see you do that without doubting yourself even a hundredth of a percent one day._

“What are you doing?” Logan rasps, and Roman turns, just enough, to see Dee carefully dipping a paintbrush into a test tube, which—okay, Roman had no idea what was going on, but that was par for the course for magic—and carefully paint in broad swaths across a piece of parchment.

“It won’t tell me the ingredients, to see if something got in there that shouldn’t have,” Dee says. “Maria’s recipes were notoriously stable.”

Roman watches as the broad paint strokes coalesce into words, shiny, inky bits of script, and he watched as Virgil’s Uncle traces a finger down each list, comparing each.

Patton sits next to Logan, wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him closer into his side, and Logan doesn’t protest, moves when Patton moves him.

“Do they match?”

“No,” Dee says. “Not perfectly.”

“Perfectly, then,” Cora checks. “So we know that’s not the cause, at least.”

Dee scowls, and buries himself in the nearest grimoire. Roman resigns himself to a long night of trading off holding Virgil’s hands, of worry and coffee and hunting for a solution.

For now, though, he’ll keep holding Virgil’s hand. Just until Logan or Patton wants to take over.

-

_The loch is black and dark and deep._

_Virgil knows all the legends. Of course he does, he's a Fae. He knows all the legends about magic in Loch Ligerion **because** he's part of the source of all the magic in Loch Ligerion. But no one ever really goes into the lake. No one ever swims there. Not even Faes, reckless and daring and wild as they are. Maybe it's something to do with the water, so dark, so unnaturally dark. Or how cold it is, even in the middle of a heatwave. But there have always been myths surrounding the loch, and even Virgil can't help but feel wary of it. Magic knows magic, after all._

_And the only things that have ever been found swimming in that lake are corpses._

_"But it looks so nice," someone says. They sound like they're frowning. "And it's so hot out."_

_Yes. Yes, it is hot out. Virgil hadn't even noticed until they said something, but now it's all he can notice: the sweltering heat, the sweat on his brow, how very parched his throat is, and how deep and inviting the water looks. Even if it might be a darker magic than even a Fae would mess with._

_"We can go home," Virgil says, and he can't turn his head to see who's with him. " **I** should go home."_

_"Do you know the way?" the voice says._

_“Of course I know the way,” Virgil says.  
_

_“Are you sure?” The voice laughs, and Virgil looks across the loch.  
_

_His house is there. Except his house is a mile from the loch. It shouldn’t be there. Here. **He**  shouldn’t be here._

_“Oh, Virgil, I **know**  you shouldn’t be here,” a voice purrs, deeper and deeper with each second. “Don’t you?”  
_

_Yes. Yes, he knows._

_Doesn’t he?_

_“It didn’t stop you, did it? Not from fooling with magic.”  
_

_“I always fool with magic,” Virgil says, and his voice sounds distant, even to his own ears. “I’m a Fae, that’s what we do.”  
_

_It’s hot. It’s so, so hot. Virgil feels like he’s about to melt into a puddle._

_“Perhaps you’ve fiddled with it too far,” the voice muses. “Now. Do you want to go home or not?”  
_

_Yes. Yes, he wants to go home. But not through the loch. Not there. He can’t go through the loch. He can walk—_

_“Oh, **can**  you?”  
_

_Virgil can’t walk. He can’t move, he can’t move, he can’t move—_

_He can only jump into the water. He knows it before he even has to try._

_“Go on, Virgil,” the voice laughs, and it’s so deep and loud that it sends the leaves shaking and falling from the trees, even though they’re green and fresh as they could be, and they sink down below the black water, stems bobbing up blackened and crumbling to ash on the surface, “go on. Try and go home.”  
_

-

“How long has it been since you slept?” Patton asks Logan, rubbing his shoulder, ignoring the stinging in his own eyes.

Logan’s lips go thin and stubborn.

“He’s been asleep for four days,” Logan says tightly.

“It won’t help him if you collapse,” Patton says sharply. “Even _Dee’s_ taken a break, at this point. You can’t keep researching when you have to drink coffee every twenty minutes just to stay upright.”

Logan bites his lip, hard. Patton wants to free it.

“Please,” Patton says. “Please, just for an hour or two. You’ll be able to think so much clearer once you do.” 

“That...”

“Makes sense, because I’m right,” Patton says. “It won’t do us any good if you manage to stay up so late you put yourself into a—” Patton cuts himself off. Logan shudders. 

“If you stay up so late I put myself into a coma too, you meant.”

“Logan,” Patton begins, but Logan closes his eyes.

“You’re right,” he says. “You’re right. Okay. I’ll take a nap.”

Patton lets out a soft sigh of relief, and leans in to kiss him on the cheek. “Thank you,” he says fervently. “Roman’s there, too. I’ll do grimoire patrol, if it makes you feel any better.”

“It does,” he says wearily. “I—you’ll wake me up? If anything happens?”

“Of course I will,” Patton says softly. “C’mon, I just took your pajamas out of the dryer.”

Patton guides him through it, Logan stumbling with exhaustion—Patton wonders briefly if he’d waited longer, if he’d have found Logan collapsed over a grimoire when he went to get him for dinner—and then into Virgil’s bedroom.

Roman’s already curled up on Virgil’s right side, sleeping peacefully, head pillowed on his chest. Crow’s curled up at their feet. Virgil’s since been changed into pajamas—a short sleeved shirt, comfy pants—and tucked into his own bed.

They figured yesterday morning that he’d be more comfortable that way.

Logan gets under the covers on his left side, curls shyly around Virgil so that he’s holding Roman’s wrist; Roman snuffles in his sleep.

“Okay,” Patton says. “Sleep well.”

“I’m hoping Virgil doesn’t for much longer,” Logan murmurs, and Patton swallows, tries for a smile.

“Me too,” he says, and turns the lights back off.

He closes the door behind him, and presses his back against it, sinking to the ground.

He hates it. He hates this, he hates it, he _hates_  it. He hates seeing Logan drawn so tight and stressed, he hates seeing Roman feeling like he’s useless, he hates seeing Virgil lying so pale and still.

Patton wonders if it’s possible to go back in time to flying tackle Maria before she ever wrote down that stupid, _stupid_ recipe. It seems like one of the only solutions they haven’t thought of yet.

They’d tried what felt like everything. They tried the true love’s kiss cliche, Dee had tried reverse-engineering the potion, he’d tried every quick-fix wake-up spell, potion, and ritual he could. So now they were combing through Virgil’s family’s extensive library and hoping, _praying,_  that they found something that would _work._

At this point, Patton felt like they were hauling every book that even had the word “sleep” in it in front of Virgil’s Uncle. Speaking of—

Patton sighs, and trods toward the library. 

He goes back through the stack of books Logan had left behind—even if he’d gone through them, he was so close to passing out that Patton wouldn’t be surprised if he missed something—and tugs the top one off the stack.

He also hates reading these. They’re all in this tiny copperplate cursive, and a lot of Virgil’s relatives had _really_  bad handwriting, and also some of the spells and potions they’ve written down make Patton really uncomfortable about the implications (like, who even _needs_  a spell for depleting the city’s food supplies??? who even does that?)

He’s gone through three when he hears footsteps, and he turns to face the door. 

Roman’s in the same clothes he’s been in for two days, and he plods over to the table, sitting down and picking up a grimoire at random.

“Hi, sweetheart,” Roman says. “You finally talked Logan into a nap, hm?”

“I think he just needed to be steered toward a horizontal surface,” Patton says. 

“I’m not gonna have to talk you into that too, am I?” Roman says, and Patton tries for a smile.

It falls flat, judging by the look on Roman’s face.

“We’ll find it soon,” Roman says, squeezing Patton’s wrist. “He’ll wake up.”

Patton takes in a deep breath. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, he will.”

 

Cora brings them their meals.

She’s mostly abandoned the diner, only goes there to get the food, but Patton walks with her, sometimes. Partially because she might need a hand carrying everything, and partially because watching Virgil lie there, in white, so still, creates uncomfortable echoes in his head of when he was thirteen and his mother had lost all her hair and he’d had to watch her sleep the days away, too.

He’s doing that for dinner today.

The path from the house to Cora’s is well-worn—Patton can’t help but think of Virgil, ages six to sixteen, walking this path practically every day.

“How’s he been?” Cora asks, and Patton shrugs.

“The same,” he says, quiet. 

Cora sighs, a heavy thing, and for a second she looks as old as he is. “My idiot nephew,” she murmurs. “It’s all that Fae blood, believe you me.”

Patton tries for a smile, and says, “Dee would probably get offended.”

Cora tries for a laugh. “He’d know I’m right.”

The days have been full of a lot of that: trying to carry on conversation as normal, as if the person that bound them all wasn’t in a coma with no plan on how to get him out of it.

She walks into the diner. It’s after the dinner rush, so there’s only a few stragglers and the teenage part-timers who wait tables. Patton helps pick out entrees and does the prep work she tells him to do. Chopping vegetables and boiling water is almost comfortingly familiar—if they were at home, Patton would probably be making all four of them dinner, Patton and Roman talking about work, Logan grousing about classes, Virgil plotting aloud about the clients he’d have that night.

But now he’s just trying to force small-talk with Virgil’s great-aunt, and the amount of people who should be eating is all wrong, and it’s only as comforting as long as it lasts and if he doesn’t think of anything else.

Historically, Patton’s never been very good at that.

Patton plates up pasta in the to-go containers, and Cora loads it into bags, giving Patton more bags, because Patton had been having fits of chivalry whenever she tried to take more things than him.

They walk back in silence. That’s the norm.

They all eat in silence, buried in grimoires. That’s the norm, too.

Eventually, they relocate to Virgil’s room—Dee and Logan tote piles of grimoires, Roman and Cora fuss with Virgil’s hair and wipe any sweat off his brow, and Patton...

Patton frets.

He guesses that’s normal enough.

-

_There’s a light on in the kitchen. Because that’s where Virgil is—the kitchen of House Fae Loch Ligerion. With the same familiar potted plants strewn across every available surface, or dangling from the ceiling. The sun’s shining gently through the window. Not yet sunset, which means the time for clients isn’t quite there yet. But soon._

_“Did you ever grow out of hating tea?”  
_

_Virgil blinks, and looks over. “You know I have, Uncle,” he begins, except he turns around and there’s no scales or scar on his face._

_“Dad,” Virgil chokes out.  
_

_His father smiles. Virgil’s seen that in both pictures of him and pictures of himself. “I think you know I’m a dream.”_

_He does._

_“Question still stands, though,” his dad says. “The only limit is your imagination here.”  
_

_“One of Cora’s butterscotch milkshakes,” Virgil says, and his father laughs.  
_

_“She always had those butterscotch candies when I was a kid, too,” his father says fondly, and a frosty glass is set before him, his father cradling a cup of tea for himself. “Good to know you’ve inherited your mother’s sweet tooth.”  
_

_Virgil licks his lips, and asks at last, “Why was she in the diner? In that first dream, I mean.”_

_He’s had so many dreams he can hardly keep track of them all. The diner isn’t the only one she’s appeared in, but it has been the most upsetting. The black water of the loch keeps chasing him, and he’s afraid that it’ll rise up past his neck in the next one. Swallow him down._

_“Nightmares are much scarier when you think you’re seeing the future,” his father says. “I would know.”  
_

_“Did you have them often?”  
_

_“Sometimes,” he says, a frustratingly vague answer. Then, “Why did you drink that potion, Virgil?”  
_

_Virgil hesitates, and says, “I’m twenty-three, now. It’s been eighteen years since you died. In two I’ll have lived for about four times as many years as I ever knew you. In three I’ll outlive you.”_

_“Yes,” his father says, “but why did you drink it?”  
_

_“You saw the future a lot. Didn’t you? That was your gift.”  
_

_“It was, but that’s not why you drank it.” He holds up a hand to forestall Virgil’s arguments. “It might be part of it, but I think you know there’s more to it than that.”  
_

_There’s a knock at the door._

_“Come in, Vi, we have to talk our son through a crisis,” his father calls, and his mother sweeps through the door, smiling and pouring herself a mug of something—hot chocolate, maybe?—before sitting beside his father.  
_

_They’re young. They’re so, so young._

_“You’re not old enough for it to be a midlife crisis, yet,” Mom scolds.  
_

_“Logan calls it an ongoing quarter-life crises,” Virgil says, and both his parents laugh.  
_

_“Those boys of yours,” his father comments.  
_

_“I love them.”  
_

_“We know, baby,” his mother says.  
_

_“Am I going to be able to go back?”  
_

_“Yes,” his father says. “Not yet. But soon.”  
_

_**Yes** meant he’d see them. That’s good enough for Virgil._

_“You have to answer the question first,” his mother says. “Why did you drink it?”  
_

_Virgil takes a sip of the butterscotch milkshake, holds it in his mouth before he swallows it down. It tastes more like snow than candy._

_"I’ve never been able to see the future very clearly,” Virgil says slowly. “I... I don’t know. I was missing you. I wanted to see—”_

_“See what?”  
_

_Virgil worries his lip between his teeth, and says, “I’m terrified of beetles, did you know that?”_

_They both incline their heads. Right. They’re dreams. **His**  dreams, at that._

_“I don’t want to hear that clicking ever again,” Virgil says. “I—I don’t know. I wanted to see if they’re right, if we broke the curse.”  
_

_“And if you did?” his mother says. “What would you want to see then?”  
_

_Virgil hesitates. He knows what he wants._

_“I just want them,” Virgil says. “I want... I want them. Patton and Logan and Roman. However they’d have me, for as long as they’d have me.”_

_His parents smile._

_“And if they asked you? How you wanted to have them,” his mother prompts.  
_

_Virgil takes another sip. It’s sweeter, now._

_“When Roman ran that scam,” Virgil says. “I said yes.”  
_

_Even softer, he says, “I’d say yes to all of them.”_

_The sun is setting. People will wander up the bluestone path any time now._

_His father says, “Cora knows the story, it was her place. Did she ever tell you that your mother fake-proposed to me in a restaurant, too?”_

_-_

Virgil blinks, once, twice. He’d recognize that ceiling anywhere.

He’s back in Loch Ligerion. He’s back in his room at Loch Ligerion. 

His mouth also tastes terrible, just as a sidenote. Like, genuinely, so bad. He’s going to have to brush his teeth like five times. His room smells like Cora’s veggie pasta.

“Oh my God,” someone says, and Virgil turns his head, squinting in the light.

“Auntie?”

“Oh, my _God,”_  Roman joins in, and then there’s a cacophony of sound— _oh my God_  and _you’re awake_  and _this isn’t a relief at all_  and _VirgilVirgilVirgilVirgil—_

“I—what?” Virgil says, pushing himself up onto his elbow and rubbing his eye. “How long was I out?”

“Four days,” Patton says, and his green eyes are shiny with tears, and oh no, he’s—

Wait.

“Four _days?!”_  Virgil demands. “Like. Ninety-six hours, four days?!”

“You _idiot,”_  Crow hisses.

“Well, we don’t know precise timing, since you were alone when you took the potion,” Logan says, and Virgil pushes himself up so he can see Uncle, who’s hovering behind Auntie.

“Wasn’t the potion just supposed to _help_  with dreaming, not knock me into a coma?!”

“No, you’re entirely wrong,” Uncle says, and Virgil tries to sit up and has to fall back against his elbows again, head swimming, vision blacked out.

“ _Whoa.”_

“Take it slow,” Logan cautions, “the blood rush is probably going to be something else—“

“Oh, Virgil, you must be hungry—“

“—shouldn’t sit up so quickly—“

“—so _happy_  you’re up, oh my God—“

“—should have been true love’s kiss, you know that right—?”

“—have not been worried at all about your general welfare—“

Virgil looks at his Auntie, his Uncle, his three boyfriends, all shouting over each other.

He loves them. He loves them all so much.

And, you know what? He’s okay with how much he loves his boyfriends. How much he wants them to be his and him to be theirs, for as long as possible.

Virgil wonders again where Roman laid hands on a ring at such short notice.

* * *

He loses track of how much he thinks about marriage, after that.

When he was little, he’d never really _understood_  why his family had invited them to weddings, or come to Ligerion to get married themselves. The curse was a bedtime story, the monster in the far future, the only conceivable monster that their magic would never be able to fight off, why would they allow themselves to get close like that?

He gets that now. He gets it. He gets it when Logan buries himself in a corner to read a new book, and gets so deeply entrenched in the plot in the characters, from New York Times bestsellers to discount mystery books bought by the stack, because _every_  book is Logan’s favorite book. He gets it when he goes to pick Patton up from work and sees him on the playground, bandaging some poor kid’s scraped knee and obligingly dropping a kiss onto it when they ask and being tugged around by little kids shouting _Mister Pat Mister Pat Mister Pat!_  and him following after, trying to pay attention to each and every kid. He gets it when Roman’s scrawling all over his script pages in a color-coded system so contrived that even Roman didn’t really get it, but was too stubborn to really _stop_  doing it. 

He gets the idea of wanting to spend his life with someone else—three very specific _someone elses,_  really. 

He buys the rings two weeks after the return from Loch Ligerion, after he’d researched marriage alternatives for poly relationships. He hopes Roman and Logan are still up for planning something wedding-like; a statement of vows seems like it could warrant an occasion for a massive dessert bar, didn’t it? Knowing them, it would take months.

But that’s okay. They have nothing but time.


End file.
